Welcome back to nearlucid. Today, we’ll be kicking off a new series called switch
overview where we give some specs, sound tests, and our overall opinions on enthusiast switches.
This is designed to help you better decide what switch you might want to use in your next board,
or to just help expand your keyboard knowledge. So let's take a look.
These are darling switches. They’re named after both Zero Two from Darling in the Franxx and GMK
darling, um, I don't really watch anime though so uh. These are a frankenswitch
composed of gazzew bobagum housings and kailh pro burgundy stems. Let's talk a
little bit about the individual switches themselves, starting with bobagums.
These are gazzews silent linears, with a light pink housing and darker pink stem, coming in 52,
62, and 68g spring variants. The ones used for the darlings I have are gazzews korean 68g springs.
The housings and stems are made out of a custom plastic blend. They’re PCB mounted(5 pin), and of
course, gazzew switches always have tight tolerances and thus don’t require films.
Bobagums on their own are 60 cents a switch.
Kailh pro burgundys are linears with a burgundy stem and clear RGB shine through housing,
and have a light 50g spring. They’re plate mounted (3 pin), and do benefit from films.
Pro burgundys on their own are about 28 cents a switch.
Pro burgundys were chosen for their longer than usual stem poles,
and gazzew bobagums housings were chosen because, well, its gazzew. When you combine their prices,
it’s 88 cents per darling, sitting a bit above the price of 75 cents per gateron ink.
Since they’re both very deep, we’ll be comparing the two. Let's take a listen.
I personally love how these sound, and [can be very slightly deeper than inks
in specific board configurations.] This is partly due to that very long stem pole.
Certainly, most of the interesting characteristics of this frankenswitch come from just that.
My batch is scratchy, but ones you make on your own or buy won’t have the same issue.
I’ll get to why in a moment. How do they stack up against inks?
The bottom out distance is noticeably shorter because of that super long stem.
In terms of stem wobble, there's also a pretty stark difference. In my jelly epoch polycarbonate
plate, the stem of the ink moves around quite a bit while the darling stem stays firmly put.
The bottom out sound of darlings is also a bit louder, again, thanks to the stem.
For frankenswitches, 88 cents is not a bad price, and I definitely think this is a viable
option if you want something that's super thocky I got these from Olaugh and he will be doing a
group buy for these. I’ll link the reddit post in the comments and the description. The reason
they’re so scratchy is because Olaugh bought the individual switch parts bulk from gazzew, which
turned out to have slightly different tolerances than the preassembled switches. This basically
meant that he had to file each individual top housing to allow the stem to fit properly,
and the experimental batch that I received didn’t have a consistent filing. The actual
group buy batch will be considerably smoother, and I seriously respect him putting in all the effort
for this. Olaugh will be selling these for 85 cents per switch stock, and 1 dollar 15 cents per
switch lubed. The stock price is slightly under the price it would cost to make yourself,
so if you want to try this switch out, I would not hesitate to pick up some for yourself.
Overall, I think this is a reasonably priced frankenswitch that can challenge inks in terms
of a thocky switch for your next build. If you’re watching this while its still on,
consider Olaughs post, he’s been a friend of mine for quite some time now.
And that's all I have for you today. Thanks for watching this episode of nearlucid. If you liked
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